Hey, can someone help me identify if these are mites? I recently picked up a collection of snakes that were living in a dirty non temp controlled garage. She had two in what she was calling bioactives, but the enclosures just had dirt and no plants or moisture or any temp/humidity control. There were bugs crawling all over those two snakes. I took the whole collection and quarantined them in a room on paper towels, and made plastic hides and got plastic water bowls. I’m finding what look like black flecks in the water, and little blood spots in the bowls and on the paper towels. I’m assuming this is mites but I can’t find any on the snakes themselves, they just keep showing up in the enclosures. Ive never had mites, I’ve just read about it. Can someone confirm that’s what happening? What’s the best spray/treatment? Are dawn baths actually safe or should I just keep doing the regular water soaks I’ve been doing? Any help is greatly appreciated!
A lot of that looks like debris they may have picked up and had stuck to them. I don’t see what looks to be an actual mite but I may have missed it in my pre- caffeinated state.
What I would do for these two at the moment is getting a warm soak ready for them. Give them a couple of minutes to just chill and drink if they want. And then swirl some dish soap into the water after that. Give them another couple minutes but make sure at some point every part of the snake is submerged.
The soap destroys the water tension and is a quick mite fix because it will drown the ones that get soapy water. It’s not a permanent solution, but helps get what’s on the animals off.
Also do another wipedown and clean of the tubs so you have a clean slate again to watch for more bugs.
The bugs in the cages could have just been opportunistic ones that moved in. I hope that’s the case and the quick soak gets whatever debris and crud off them. But if you do start seeing any crawling on the fresh clean stuff then yeah… it’s a problem.
Make sure to do a good check around the head of the snakes. Heat pits, around the eyes and under the chin are big party spots for mites.
In the first pic I see small blood specks which imho are definitely evidence of blood filled smashed mites. Mites only stay on the snake just long enough to feed. Then they crawl off to find somewhere to their eggs. Then the hatched mites crawl back on the snake to feed and the cycle continues……. I have used Pro Vent a Mite spray with great success….
It sure looks like snake mites to me. The black flecks, try smearing them on a paper towel. If it’s a snake mite, it’ll leave a bloody smear. You can get a cheap jeweler’s loupe from Amazon to magnify and ID the flecks. Every household should have one of these. In your pictures, the red smears look like the blood of crushed snake mites. As stated before, look around the edge of the eyes, in the heat pits and in the folds under the chin for mites, these are favorite mite feeding locations. Many times a particular BP never soaks in its water bowl, unless it has mites.
There are tons of YouTube videos on snake mites. I like the one from Snake Discovery. Many people swear by Provent-a-mite (PAM), but that can be hard to acquire. Emily from Snake Discovery claims “Rid Home Lice, bedbug & dust mite spray” has the same concentration of active ingredients as PAM, but at a quarter of the price. I believe PAM is applied to the enclosure (and let it dry thoroughly) as opposed to being used directly on the snake. Rid would follow the same rule. I believe the mites pretty much only stay on the snake while feeding, then they drop off to the enclosure. From the video I get the feeling that Rid is Emily’s second favorite cure with Ivermectin being her favorite cure. Ivermectin is way more expensive than Rid. I would try the Rid route, using the PAM instructions. Rid can probably be found at Tar-mart (Target and Walmart), I’m thinking in the personal care section along with the head lice products.
Regardless of what method you use, you want to treat very aggressively. I’m not saying increase the dosage, but maybe prolong the treatment duration. You want to make sure these buggers are eradicated, including viable mite eggs that could hatch in coming days and cause a reinfestation. I would treat for 2-3 times the life cycle of the snake mite to make sure they are gone. Or treat for the normal duration, but keep the snakes in quarantine for at least a month after treatment to make sure they are gone. You do NOT want these things spreading to your main collection. That would be a huge pain to eradicate.
